Nine local restaurant business years is the equivalent of 100 or so regular old human years. Nine restaurant years on Las Olas Boulevard, well. . . that's downright prehistoric.
Celebrating those nine years of scratching, clawing, fighting for business, Big City Tavern has redone its indoor and outdoor dining areas, added a bunch of new dishes and whipped up a batch of summertime cocktails to make the coming face-melting heat and humidity a bit easier to bear.
Outdoors, the patio has been landscaped with greenery and lit with
strands of lights hanging from a red and black awning. The warm and
clubby dining room gets tricked out with sports memorabilia, 1940s
beauty pageant photos and original paintings, while the long oak bar is
updated with vintage lanterns and antiqued mirrors.
From exec
chef Louie Bossi come menu additions like agnolotti with braised pork
shoulder, tomato marmalade and ricotta salata; chicken Milanese with
kale Caesar salad, Parmesan frico and Dijon-shallot vinaigrette; and
pizza Bianca with roasted garlic, ricotta, mozzarella, Vidalia onions
and arugula.
Wash 'em all down with a Blood Orange Fizz
(Grapefruit vodka, lime juice, blood orange juice, Regan's No. 6 orange
bitters, champagne) or Green Grape Crush (Herradura Silver tequila,
lemon juice, agave nectar, green grapes, soda water).
Over at that other city, CityPlace, there's a new bar at City Cellar. It's Iggy's Bar, named after long-time Gee Emm Michael "Iggy" Ignatowicz, an al fresco
watering hole where you can sample one of the restaurant's 400-plus
bottles of wine, as well as anything from pizzas and sammies to
crab-stuffed jumbo shrimp and gnocchi al forno.
To get you to
check it out the City slickers are offering two-for-one drinks all day
and all night until Monday, May 23. Hey, after a couple of pops you
might even be able to pronounce Iggy's last name correctly.
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